The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-02-26
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
ANGLO INDIAN ENTERPRISE.

ANGLO INDIAN ENTERPRISE.
Mahogany is being rapidly introduced into
every part of India where it promises to thrive.
= The seeds sown have terminated remarkably well,
a single pound planted in green houses in the
southern districts having yielded between 5000
and 1000 plants. 1t is thought to be quite prob
able that the'world may some day look to India
instead of to America for its mahogany as well
for its quinine. The eastern product of the latter
has already become SO extensive and of such SUI
perior quality that the cinchOna bark exports of
the United States of Colombia are said to have
diminished fifty per cent. within five years.
THE LEFT HANDED.
new work by DIR. Louis Jobert states that no
purely left-handed race has ever been Dissolved,
although seventy per cent. of the inhabitants of
the Pendjab the left hand by preference, as do
also the larger part Of the Hottentos and Bush
men of South Africa. In study of criminals,
DR.. Mario has found that from fourteen to twenty
two per cent. of convicts were left handed, the
highest ratio among people of all classes being
only nine in the hundred
THE UNEXPLAINED IN GEOLOGY.
While reaching deeply into the origin of
things, reflects Dana, geology leaves wholly un-
explained the creation of matter, life, and spirit,
and that spiritual element which pervades the
whole history like prophecy, becoming more
and more clearly pronounced with the progressing
ages, and having its contamination and fulfment
in man. 1t gives no cause for the arrangement
of the continents together in one hemisphere, and
mainly in the same temperate zone, or their stu
alton about the narrow Atlantic, with the barrier
mountains in the remote west of America and in
the remote east of Europe and Asia, thus gather
ing the civilized world into one vast arena; it
does not account for the oceans having, in extent
and depth, that exact relation to the land which,
under all the changes, allowed of submergence
and emergence through small oscillations of the
crust, and hence permitted the spreading out of
sandstones and shales By the waves and currents,
the building up of limestones through animal life,
and the accumulation of coal-beds through the
growth of plants, and all in numberless alterna-
tions nor for the various adaptations of the sys-
tenn of plants and animals to the wants of the last
species in that system. Through the whole his
tory of the globe there was a shaping, provision
ing, and exating of the earth, with reference to
being of mind, to be sustained educated, exalted.
This is the spiritual element in geological history,
for which attraction water and fire have no ex-
PLANTATION.
THEORY OF sUN-sPoTs.
By means of sensitive thermopile and per-
forated disc of cardboard, Prof. Sporer, Ger
man physicist, has proven that extra-luminous
patches on the solar disc more intensely heated
then the rest, and that the dark spots are cooler
than the average surface. The hottest regions
must develop ascending gas-currents, to which
descents of cooler gas masses must necessarily cor
respond. These descending gases must generate
the dark spots, and the ascending produce the
prominences which are observed to shoot up to
enormous heights. This theory is confirmed by
the fact that sunspots always form on bright
parts of the sun.
AN INSECT TRAMP.
A supposed house-fy parasite (Hypoppus mus
caratna) has been found by French naturalist, P.
Megnin, to be in reality no parasite, preying upon
the fy's body, but simply the common cheese-mite
(Toglyphus scio) availing itself of the first means
of transportation to new sources of foodsupply.
The creature with remarkable power of adapta-
ton to environment, becomes greatly changed on
attaching itself to the fly or other animal, but as
sumes its original form, and multiplies rapidly,
on reaching suitable feeding grounds. This dis
covery explains how fresh cheese can become in
fected with mites, even when carefully placed on
a shelf away from all suspected sources of con-
tamination.
THE FLOODS MILEAGE.
In recent lecture before London institution,
Dr. B. W. Richardson stated that the work of the
heart in healthy man is equivalent to the feat OF
raising LIS tons one foot per hour, or 1875 tons
in twenty-fou hours. The use of eight ounces OF
alcohol causes the hearts work to show an excess
of24 foot-tons. Illustrating this powerful engines
performance by new calculation, he assumed
that the blood is thrown out by an average of SO
strokes per minute, and at the force of feet to
each stroke, which would give the mileage of the
blood through the body as 207 yards per minute,
miles per hour, 16S miles per day, $500 miles
per year, or $50 miles in lifetime of eigh-
ty-four years. In the same long life the great
Journey of the blood would be the result of the
grand total of 2,S6s, 776, 600 heart beats.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Dyspepsia, palpitation of the heart and nervous
ness are among the disorders attributed to the use
of strong tea in excess, but the most remarkable
effect seems to have been observed in the case OF
young girl reported by an English medical au-
thority to have had attacks exactly resembling
delirium tremens as result of habit of chewing
tea leaves.
France is credited with having 1900 medicines
in its Pharmacopoeia Spain and Belgium, 1906
Russia, 1850; Greece and Switzerland, 1,04O;
the United States, 1,O10; Great Britain, Sl5;
Sweden, 746; Denmark, 100; Holland, 665; Ger
many, Cos; Austria, $50; Hungary and Rou-
mania, 545 and Norway, $50.
A communication to the French Academy of
Science, by Mons. C. v. Zenger, has called at
tention to the simultaneous occurrence of brilliant
auroras and meteoric showers, suggesting prob
able connection.
Recent observations suggest that perfumes and
the odors of flowers operate powerfully in prevent
ing lung diseases.
During the season of 1886 the United States
Fish Commission has distributed over 9O,O0O,OO0
young shad IN the various streams anu WALTERS VI
the country, at an expense of less than $40, 600.
As less than 100000 shad are taken for the
market in a season, fifteen young fish were put
into the water for every old one removed.
The cave animals of North America, according
to Prof. A. S. Packard, comprise total of 172
species of blind creatures nearly all of which are
mostly white in color.
@- Among the political possibilities talked
about in New York by leading men of both par
ties, who are planning for 1883, are Blaine and
Foraker, Cleveland and voorhees,, Sherman and
Hiscock, Hill and Holman, Hawley and Harrison
and Carlisle and Hewitt. Blaine's friends are
booming him all they know how, while Foraker is
named by many for first place on the Republican
Presidential ticket 1t is too early yet to forecast